


Honesty is (Not Always) the Best Policy

by ThirtySixSaveFiles



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Contract Killers, M/M, Murder, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 20:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11721966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySixSaveFiles/pseuds/ThirtySixSaveFiles
Summary: Trust is the foundation of any good relationship - unless, of course, you murder people for money on the weekends, in which case the truth might be a slightly more precious commodity.





	Honesty is (Not Always) the Best Policy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an Anon for an AU meme request: "[Spy/Assassin AU] Rhack maybe with a Mr and Mrs Smith theme to it?" I confess that I've only seen the first part of that movie Anon, so I hope this is ok!

“Pass the pota- the cauliflower, would you?” Jack doesn’t look up from his tablet even as he corrects himself. Rhys sighs internally and pushes the bowl down the table, his own portion sitting untouched on his plate.

He doesn’t even  _ like _ mashed cauliflower. But the man Jack thinks he lives with is a low-carb enthusiast, and by this point Rhys isn’t sure how to extricate himself.

Jack scoops a huge portion onto his plate, still not looking up, and digs in with every appearance of enjoyment. Or at least - what passes for enjoyment these days. Jack’s been distant lately, but Rhys supposes he hasn’t been much better.

Things had been easier in Bogota. They had had such  _ chemistry _ \- Rhys had needed to not appear to be alone, and Jack hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off of Rhys’ legs (or his ass). He had had a certain dark and rogueish look about him, and it had been easy to fall into his bed and stay there, especially when Jack made convincing arguments like pulling Rhys close and murmuring filthy nothings into the back of his neck.

It had been the best way to wait out the furor after an assassination; especially one where Rhys had arrived only to find his target already dead. Rhys had thought he could keep up the pretense in the States, and at first it had been thrilling - seeing Jack on the odd weeknight or long weekend, keeping in touch via text when he couldn’t. Jack seemed to work an awfully busy schedule for a mid-career programmer, but it’s not like Rhys knows much about that. Thankfully Jack had never pried into Rhys’ own eccentric schedule - there were probably only so many “management emergencies” Rhys could pass off, probably.

Not that Jack had ever asked about it. Rhys wonders now if that’s part of the problem, really; but his cover story is  _ supposed _ to be boring, it’s supposed to deflect curiosity, not invite it. He had suggested they move in together to try to recapture that spark, but instead he seems to have suffocated it. 

Rhys wonders if their therapist would describe the cauliflower as a cry for help.

“I’m heading out to the AGA conference this weekend. In Chicago,” he tries, searching for any sign of interest from across the table. “Last minute, you know how it is.” Rhys has no idea if that’s accurate, but Jack doesn’t appear to be bothered if it isn’t.

“Sure. You need a ride to the airport?” He still hasn’t looked up.

“I’ll catch a Lyft. Don’t put yourself out.” Rhys stresses the last part a bit, but Jack doesn’t seem to hear it.

“Okay, sweetheart. Bring me back a stress ball, or something.”

Rhys sighs. Maybe he can fake his own death while he’s away. That has to be better than this slow, stagnant one.

* * *

Rhys does go to the conference. He even picks up a stress ball on the show floor; yellow, Jack’s favorite color. He’s not sure why, but he feels like he owes it to Jack, somehow. Jack asks for so little; almost nothing, actually, and Rhys feels like he’d be the worst kind of fake boyfriend if he didn’t at least attempt to fulfill this request, even off-hand as it was.

On the second night, when the attendees are well liquored up, Rhys follows the speaker from the International Confederation of Nuclear Physicists back up to his comped room. Rhys lingers at one of the doors down the hall, pretending to search for his keycard, as Dr. Sanders pulls out his own and lets himself in. As the heavy door shuts behind him, Rhys lets out a huff of displeasure, striding back down the hall toward the elevators, as if heading for the front desk.

As he passes Sanders’ room he peels off the slim-mount card reader he’d set over the door lock earlier, and slips it in his pocket. He takes the elevator three floors up to the room he’d booked under  _ Benjamin Holder _ .

Later that night - or early the next morning - after he’s keyed a blank card to open Sander’s room and the hallways are empty except for a few late-night revelers, he heads back down, clothes carefully nondescript and baseball cap pulled low over his face. The hallway is hushed and empty as he approaches Sanders’ room; a good sign. 

The door blips green and Rhys eases the handle down, swinging the door silently open. He slips inside, closing it behind him and listening.

There’s no sound but the faint snoring of someone deep asleep. The only illumination is the glow of the bedside clock and the streetlight spilling around the haphazardly closed curtains, but that’s more than enough to work with.

Rhys ghosts forward and lifts one of the pillows off of the other double bed in passing. It’s the work of a moment to press it to the doctor’s face, a few more minutes until his struggles weaken, and then a few more minutes after he’s gone still. Just to be sure.

He check in with his employer via burner phone -  _ Job’s done _ \- and gets a confirmation of a wire transfer a few moments later. After that it’s just putting the pillow back on the opposite bed and heading for the door, no one the wiser - except that the door  _ clicks _ open as he’s fluffing the pillow back up and light from the hallway floods the entryway.

Rhys skirts the bed quickly, putting his back to the wall, and slips a knife out from the rig under his shirt. He listens carefully to the footsteps approaching on his left, and when a broad-shouldered figure steps into view, backlit by the hallway, Rhys goes for the jugular.

He misses.

Well - he doesn’t  _ miss _ , but he must make a noise, give himself away somehow, because the backlit figure raises an arm just as Rhys lashes out and instead of severing the person’s throat Rhys’ knife slices through thick fabric into flesh. The figure hisses and recoils, but Rhys is already moving; careful to keep his face averted, he grabs the figure’s wounded forearm, thumb digging into the gash, and pulls them into his upraised knee. The figure wheezes, breath knocked out of them, and Rhys shoves them to the ground and breaks for the door.

He’s not interested in a confrontation. His job is to get in and get out, not to worry about collateral damage.

As he passes Rhys gets a whiff of something spicy; it reminds him of Jack’s aftershave, and as Rhys sprints down the hall for the emergency stairwell and the go-bag he left stashed there, Rhys wonders what it says about him that he’s even thinking about Jack on the job now.

Probably, he thinks as he exits the lobby and waves for a taxi, it means that he needs to either put up or shut up when he gets home.

Rhys sighs. Murder for hire is a lot easier than talking about  _ feelings _ .

* * *

Jack isn’t home when Rhys gets there, which is - which is fine. It means Rhys has time to shower and think about things, to try to come up with something to say.

_ I feel like I don’t know you _ . That’s no good - what if Jack says the same thing back?

_ I miss the way we used to be.  _ That’s not much better. If Jack asks what’s changed, what can Rhys tell him?

_ I sometimes fly away for the weekend and kill people for money and I want to share that with you because I don’t want to have to lie to you. _ Definitely not. Although that last part is true - Rhys doesn’t know when it started, but lying to Jack has become like itch seated deep under his skin: a little more unbearable every time. He hasn’t come up with anything by the time the water runs cold, and he’s re-attaching his arm, clad only in a pair of boxers, when he hears the front door close and Jack’s keys hit the bowl in the entryway. Jack’s footsteps head toward the kitchen, and it’s two in the afternoon but he’s probably making coffee; he always does when he gets home, no matter what time it is.

Rhys smiles at the thought. For all that they sometimes seem like strangers who live together, it’s comforting, somehow, to think that at least he knows Jack this well, even if it doesn’t go both ways. Rhys fishes the stress ball out of his overnight bag and gives it an experimental squeeze, suddenly wishing he’d gotten Jack something better.

He pads down the hallway in his bare feet, smile growing at the sight of Jack glaring impatiently at their coffee maker.

“Here,” Rhys says lightly, tossing the squishy foam ball as Jack looks up. “I got you something.”

Jack turns, but slowly, and wow - he must have had a rough night out with Nisha and Wilhelm, because he looks worse for the wear, tired and stiff, turning just a shade too slow to catch the bright yellow ball. It bounces off his right forearm and he winces, pulling it back against his body.

Rhys watches the ball bounce and hit the floor in slow motion, the remembered smell of aftershave suddenly sharp in his nose.

This is incredibly paranoid, even for someone in his profession, but if he’s  _ right - _

If he’s  _ wrong - _

Rhys steps forward and grabs a knife from the butcher’s block, crowding Jack against the counter and pressing the knife against Jack’s throat.

If he’s wrong, well - he was probably going to have to break up with Jack anyway. If he has to be an ex-boyfriend, he might as well be the crazy one.

“Rhys, what the  _ fuck _ -” Rhys presses the knife in and Jack stops talking, gritting his teeth. 

“How did you hurt your arm, Jack,” Rhys says very calmly.

“Are you cra-  _ jesus _ , okay okay,” Jack spits as Rhys presses in just enough to score the skin. They’re eye to eye like this, blue and brown against blue and green.

Rhys can see the exact moment Jack decides to lie to him.

Rhys stabs the knife into the sleeve of Jack’s shirt, so when Rhys backs up Jack is caught short, but Jack sweeps a leg out to tangle with Rhys’ and Rhys tumbles back on his ass. Jack tears his sleeve away from the knife as Rhys catches himself, but then it’s Rhys’ turn to bring Jack down, kicking the side of Jack’s knee. Rhys launches himself at Jack as his leg crumples underneath him, getting astride him and landing with his hands around his throat - 

But Jack has produced a gun from somewhere and has it pressed against Rhys’ temple, and Rhys is fast, but he’s not faster than a bullet.

They stay locked together for a long moment, breathing heavily, and Rhys stares Jack in the eye and waits for him to pull the trigger.

Jack’s eyes tighten.

Then he tosses the gun aside, bringing his hands up to wipe over his face. “Christ.  _ Christ _ .” He peeks up at Rhys between his fingers. “Those are some fancy moves you got there, pumpkin - where’d you learn ‘em?”

“Army Rangers,” Rhys replies. There doesn’t seem to be much point in lying anymore. “You?”

Jack shrugs, as much as he can with Rhys’ hands still wrapped around his throat. “Just good at killing people, I guess. Never had much of what you might call  _ formal education _ .” He pulls his hands off his face and rests them on Rhys’ thighs. “You gonna go through with it, sweetheart? Not a bad view if I gotta go, I suppose.”

Rhys should. He leans in the barest fraction, but he has to know -

“What were you doing in Dr. Sanders’ room?”

Jack looks at him for a long moment, and Rhys can see him fitting the pieces together. When he does -

Jack tips his head back and laughs, the kind of full-throated belly laugh that Rhys hasn’t heard out of him since Bogota.

“Do you mean - do you mean to tell me that I missed out on the most lucrative contract I’ve seen in months to my own  _ boyfriend _ ?”

Rhys preens a little. “You snooze, you lose. Also, it’s only fair, since I’m  _ pretty  _ sure you scooped me last year in Colombia.”

Jack gapes, then his gaze turns admiring. “You little  _ opportunist _ .”

Rhys smiles, hands loosening from around Jack’s neck and moving to his shoulders. “Takes one to know one.”

“I have never been so attracted to you as I am  _ right now _ ,” Jack breathes, and then he’s pulling Rhys down into a kiss and  _ this _ is what has been missing,  _ this  _ is that spark that compelled Rhys to live a lie for the better part of a year with a man he hardly knew.

No more, Rhys thinks as he opens his mouth to Jack’s. No more secrets. No more pretending. No more -

“I have a confession to make,” Rhys murmurs, pulling back for a moment. “Another one.”

Jack raises his eyebrows, “Not sure my heart can take another one, but go ahead, let’s live dangerously.”

_ I love you _ . “I hate cauliflower.”

Jack laughs again, burying his face in Rhys’ neck, until they’re both shaking with the force of it. When Jack finally settles, breath slowing in his lungs, he leans back and pulls Rhys’ head down until he can brush his lips over Rhys’ forehead.

“You know what, sweetheart? I do too.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [ThirtySixSaveFiles](http://thirtysixsavefiles.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


End file.
